Utah Moms for Clean Air

By Janet Wilson, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
May 22, 2008

As many as 24,000 deaths annually in California are linked to chronic exposure to fine particulate pollution, triple the previous official
estimate of 8,200, according to state researchers. The revised figures are based on a review of new research across the nation about the
hazards posed by microscopic particles, which sink deep into the lungs.

“Our report concludes these particles are 70% more dangerous than previously thought, based on several major studies that have occurred in
the last five years,” said Bart Croes, chief researcher for the California Air Resources Board. Croes will present his findings at a board meeting in Fresno this morning.

The studies, including one by USC tracking 23,000 people in greater Los Angeles, and another by the American Cancer Society monitoring 300,000
people across the United States, have found rates of heart attacks, strokes and other serious disease increase exponentially after exposure
to even slightly higher amounts of metal or dust. It is difficult to attribute individual deaths to particulate pollution, Croes conceded, but he said long-term studies that account for smoking, obesity and other risks have increasingly zeroed in on fine particulate pollution as a killer.

“There’s no death certificate that says specifically someone died of air pollution, but cities with higher rates of air pollution have much
greater rates of death from cardiovascular diseases,” he said.

Californians exposed to high levels of fine particulates had their lives cut short on average by 10 years, the board staff found. Researchers
also found that when particulates are cut even temporarily, death rates fall. “When Dublin imposed a coal ban, when Hong Kong imposed reductions
in sulfur dioxide, when there was a steel mill strike in Utah . . . they saw immediate reductions in deaths,” Croes said.

More measures will be needed, air board officials said, including eventually lowering the maximum permissible levels of soot statewide.
California already has the lowest thresholds in the world, at 12 micrograms per cubic meter, but researchers say no safe level of exposure has been found. More regulations are being drafted, including one requiring cleaner heavy-duty trucks.

“We must work even harder to cut short these life-shortening emissions,” Air Resources Board Chairwoman Mary Nichols said in a statement.

Clean air advocates said they would be watching closely.

“These numbers are shocking; they’re incredible,” said Tim Carmichael, senior policy director for the Coalition for Clean Air, a statewide
group. He and others said the board must strengthen a soot clean-up plan submitted to them by the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control
District. A hearing and vote on the plan is scheduled for today.

Numerous Central Valley public health groups wrote Nichols this week, urging bans on the use of industrial equipment on bad air days, tougher
controls on boilers and crop drying equipment, and other action. The economic cost attributed to premature deaths and illnesses linked to
particulate exposure in the Central Valley has been estimated at $3 billion a year, and $70 billion statewide, according to separate studies. Those figure are expected to be revised upward based on the new report.

For more information:
Deborah Shprentz
Consultant to the American Lung Association
703-437-0959
dshprentz@hers.com
www.cleanairstandards.org

It isn’t all in your imagination, flowers really don’t smell as sweet anymore (at least over long distances). A recent study has found that the scent of flowers is reduced by air pollution. This reduction in the odor of flowers may even be partially responsible for the shocking collapse of bee colonies.

“The scent molecules produced by flowers in a less polluted environment, such as in the 1800s, could travel for roughly 1,000 to 1,200 meters [3,300 to 4,000 feet]; but in today’s polluted environment downwind of major cities, they may travel only 200 to 300 meters [650 to 980 feet],” said study team member Jose D. Fuentes. “[A]ir pollution destroys the aroma of flowers, by as much as 90 percent from periods before automobiles and heavy industry,” Fuentes said. “And the more air pollution there is in a region, the greater the destruction of the flower scents.”

Read more about it here and here.

A new study shows early indications that proximity to mercury release from a coal power plant is a predictor of autism prevalence.

It looks like closer to coal = more autism.

A newly published study of Texas school district data and industrial mercury-release data, conducted by researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, indeed shows a statistically significant link between pounds of industrial release of mercury and increased autism rates. It also shows—for the first time in scientific literature—a statistically significant association between autism risk and distance from the mercury source.

This is not a definitive study but adds to other research on the effects of mercury, particularly on children.

The new study findings are consistent with a host of other studies that confirm higher amounts of mercury in plants, animals and humans the closer they are to the pollution source. The price on children may be the highest.

Read on:

• Quotations from: University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. “Autism Risk Linked To Distance From Power Plants, Other Mercury-releasing Sources.” ScienceDaily 25 April 2008. 12 May 2008.
• Original article: Palmer, R.F., et al., Proximity to point sources of environmental mercury release as a predictor of autism prevalence. Health & Place (2008).

Utahns have been well-aware of mercury in our water and air since methylmercury levels in the Great Salt Lake shocked us all in 2004.

Methylmercury is the toxic form of mercury after it has been biologically transformed. It poses a public health risk, especially to children and unborn babies.

A neurotoxin, it builds up in the food chain and attacks the neurological system, causing retardation in the unborn and learning disabilities and behavioral problems in children. Humans are exposed most commonly by eating contaminated flesh, usually fish.

Utah has consumption warnings for several fish statewide and four duck species on the Great Salt Lake. Idaho has similar warnings.

Now, we are seeing action by the Nevada Department of Environmental Protection to shut down Nevada gold-ore plants until they can remove mercury from their emissions.

“This is a bold action they’ve taken,” said Cheryl Heying, director of the Utah Department of Air Quality. “It shows they have teeth, and they can bare them.”

Read more:

• “Utahns praises closure of mercury-spewing Nevada plant,” Judy Fahys, Salt Lake Tribune, March 13, 2008.

A report has found a link between breathing polluted air and lower IQs in children.   The study, published in the American Journal of Epidemiology, found that kids who live in neighborhoods with heavy traffic pollution have lower IQs and score worse on other tests of intelligence and memory than children who breathe cleaner air.  The study’s lead author reports that “The effect of pollution on intelligence was similar to that seen in children whose mothers smoked 10 cigarettes a day while pregnant, or in kids who have been exposed to lead.”  The study focused specifically on black carbon, a marker for traffic pollution.

News report available here.

Abstract of the study available here.

Sunday at the Salt Lake City Library, Dr. Brian Moench, of Utah Physicians for a Health Environment, spoke on “Utah’s Air Pollution: Should You Give Up and Move Out of State?” The answer for some might be yes, but most of us see enough hope ahead that we will stay here and make the difficult changes necessary to clean up the air.

What can be done, in addition to ordinary Utahns acknowledging the problem and changing our lifestyles? Dr. Moench say we

need to “change our political leaders” by letting them know what a high priority it is to deal with air pollution.

“That’s the most important part of this whole picture,” he said, adding the issue cuts across political and economic boundaries.

We need to be informed about what the Utah politicians are doing about air pollution.

Two months ago, a legislative committee panned a task force recommendation for raising an additional $3 million a year to step up air monitoring. And, in the 2007 Legislature, lawmakers kept spending on environmental programs flat while infusing most other state programs with some of the $1.6 billion budget surplus.

Governor Jon Huntsman Jr, on the other hand, has made clean air one of his top three priorities.

In an interesting counter to the false dichotomy set up by some Utah business people between caring for our air and keeping our economy healthy, Dr. Moench pointed out that pollution-related health care costs are a drain on Utah’s economy. He said, air pollution causes about 2,000 premature deaths per year in Utah. This number does not, of course, include those whose respiratory and cardiopulmonary problems are caused or worsened by air pollution but who don’t lose their lives. Clean Air that we can all breathe in common is clearly best for Utah’s economy.

• Read the whole story: “Utah’s air: Expert says breathing pollution is like smoking five cigarettes a day,” Judy Fahys, December 10, 2007.

File all alerts about mercury pollution under Shocking Facts. It turns out that the mercury from Nevada gold mines polluting our air has been under-reported.

“Nevada is one of the nation’s top mercury hot spots,” said Bonnie Gestring of EARTHWORKS, a national watchdog group. “People have a right to know how much toxic mercury is released near their home and workplace.”

The mercury in this case comes from gold mining, but keep in mind that Utah’s coal power also adds mercury to our atmosphere. Read the whole press release for a solid jolt.

New emissions data, obtained from the Nevada Department of Environmental Protection (NDEP), show that northern Nevada gold mines are still under-reporting substantial amounts of mercury air pollution. It also reveals that a number of mines that were previously considered small sources of mercury air pollution are actually very large sources, yet these mines have few pollution controls in place. Until 2006, mines were not required to actually measure mercury releases, only estimate mercury emissions.

Mercury exposure is a serious pubic health concern, particularly for children. Exposure to mercury can cause significant neurological and developmental problems such as attention and language deficits, impaired memory and impaired vision and motor function.

“We now know that hundreds of pounds of mercury are needlessly going into our air from mines that have minimal controls in place,” said John Hadder of Great Basin Mine Watch. “This new information is a wake-up call. We want the State and industry to agree to get controls in place right away.”

• Press release from Earthworks, Washington, D.C., November 2007.

More resources on mercury pollution

• Mercury Information, from Utah Department of Environmental Quality.
• Mercury Pollution Primer from Vermont Senator Patrick Leahy includes legislative history up to 2005.
• Protect Babies, a Pennsylvania citizens’ group fighting mercury pollution.
• UN meeting on mercury in Bankok / Nairobi - “Global Agreement on Mercury Pollution Focus of International Meeting,” November 12, 2007. Includes more UN documents on global mercury pollution.

A study published yesterday by researchers from from the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, part of the National Institutes of Health, from University of North Carolina, and from the Environmental Protection Agency says body mass matters when it comes to smog.

A new study provides the first evidence that people with higher body mass index (BMI) may have a greater response to ozone than leaner people. Short-term exposure to atmospheric ozone has long been known to cause a temporary drop in lung function in many people. This is the first study in humans to look at whether body weight influenced how much lung function falls after acute ozone exposure. Ozone is formed in the atmosphere in the presence of sunlight from other pollutants emitted from vehicles and other sources. Exposure occurs when people inhale air containing ozone.

Researchers at the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS), part of the National Institutes of Health, the University of North Carolina (UNC) at Chapel Hill, and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) analyzed data on young (18–35 years), healthy, non-smoking men and women to see if BMI - a measure of the amount of fat a person has - had an effect on lung response to acute ozone exposure. The study published this month in the journal Inhalation Toxicology found that ozone response was greater with increasing BMI.

• Read the full press release from NIEHS, November 27, 2007.
• Read the abstract. Reference: Bennett WD, Hazucha MJ, Folinsbee LJ, Bromberg PA, Kissling GE, London SJ. Acute Pulmonary Function Response to Ozone in Young Adults as a Function of Body Mass Index. Inhalation Toxicology, 2007 19 (14): 1147-1154.